Review – Transcend High Endurance microSDXC 64GB C10 (TS64GUSDXC10V)
Transcend High Endurance microSDXC 64 GB (TS64GUSDXC10V)
Pros
- Meeting specification's performance - 21MB/s Read; 20MB/s Write
- High durability for long term usage
- Exclusive RecoveRx software
Cons
- The shorter warranty period for high-demanding use-case product
microSD cards are getting more important than ever, thanks to the need for high speed & high capacity storage to support those video capture devices such as smartphones, action cameras, drones and body cameras. Today what we have in our labs is the Transcend Ultimate microSDXC 64 GB card that supports up to 4K high-resolution video recording.
Transcend High Endurance microSDXC 64GB C10 (TS64GUSDXC10V)
- Capacity: 16 GB | 32 GB | 64 GB | 128 GB
- Class: microSDXC C10
- Read: 21 MB/s
- Write: 20 MB/s
- Warranty: Two-year limited
High Endurance microSD card?
Before we move into the benchmarks and tests, we must first clarify the reason why Transcend created this series of microSD card and what is the target use cases for it.
As the name suggests – High Endurance. This card is meant to be used for a long period of time. For example, car dashboard camera and standalone monitoring cameras. They are built to withstand long hours of video recording. Transcend claims that the high-quality MLC NAND is capable of standing up to 24,000 hours of Full HD video recording. That is about 3 years of 24/7 non-stop writing into the card.
With that being said, in order to achieve that kind of durability, we have to sacrifice the Read/Write speed of the card. So, you can find many other brands also having the speed handicap for their CCTV microSD cards.
Synthetic Benchmark
CrystalDiskMark shows the card is indeed performing as per advertised. The read speed is about 2 MB/s faster than the acclaimed 21 MB/s and the write speed is about 1 MB/s faster.
Real World Usage
As for real life file transfer test, reading from the card results in a weird spike in speed at the middle point of transfer. For some reason, the card would suddenly increase the read speed and then returns to 22~23 MB/s range. As for writing into the card, the process is pretty consistent at 21 MB/s.
Some of you might be asking, is 21 MegaByte/s write speed enough for car dashboard camera and CCTV that records Full HD or 4K footage?
Short answer, yes.
Let’s take our Transcend DrivePro 230 car dashboard camera as an example. It records high-quality 1080p Full HD video at 30fps. The average bitrate is 15.2 Megabit/s, which if we do the math, that is around 2.275 MegaByte/s. That means we are only utilising 11% of the maximum write speed.
For some other camera that records 4K footage @ 60 Megabit/s, divide by 8 and we get 7.5 MegaByte/s. So, as long as the video bitrate is under 160 Megabit/s, then you should be safe.
Final Thoughts
While we can’t really test how long the card would last for 24/7 usage, otherwise, this article would need a few more years to complete. From our past experience of using the High Endurance 16 GB card, we are really happy with the result and the overall stability. With 64 GB of storage, our DrivePro 230 dashcam can now record up to 8 hours of high-quality Full HD footage before it starts to delete the old video.
Once again, we have to highlight the card is designed for long hours of continuous usage. While you may use it in smartphones and other devices, however, we strongly suggest you take a look at other cards such as the Transcend Ultimate microSD card which is more suitable for smartphones.
The official selling price for this 64 GB model in Malaysia is RM 199. The pricing is a bit on the higher side. Then again, we are pretty sure you can get a much cheaper deal in the retail shops.
